Polyp bailout help!!!!

[Gatling]

My tank is fairly new (5 months old) and I've never had luck with lps. Usually they die but my hammer has been staying alive and my frogspawn just bailed - except that the head was still in really good condition! I saw it was half off the calcium base last night so I moved it to a lower flow area and found the head face down this morning. Surprisingly, the polyp wasn't shriveled much at all.

I moved the head to a rock with a nice hole in it. I was wondering what's the likely hood of it attaching to a rock and how long it would take? I turned my power head off for now.

Obviously there is a reason the polyp bailed on me so I'm not expecting a huge success from this but I really wanna save it..

The head is quite small now because I took this when the aquarium lights have been on for 20 min. I can check on it when I'm home in 10 hours.

I have one small birdsnest frag which could have more polyp extension but it's been alive for 2 months. Something is up with my tank but the waters aren't lethal either.

Parameters:
Volume: 20 gallon (~15g of water volume though)
Alk: 7.7
Ca: 400 ish, don't remember
Mg: 1270 (raising it slowly)
Nitrate: < 2
Salinity: 1.026

Monthly 25% water changes or bimonthly 25%, depending on the looks of the coral.

Fish:
1 cardinal fish, spot feed mysis once a night.

Filtration:
1 baggy of carbon (no GFO as I want my nutrients to raise a bit)

Potential hazards I induced:
- I was using red Sea coral pro mix which had an alk of 10 ish. After my LPS aren't happy, I switched to aquaforest which mixed at an alk of 7.7. I waited for my alk to deplete to around 8 before I switched over so the corals wouldn't gets shock from a change in alk. As well, my LFS uses this salt mix so I know there's success in it.

- it's a new tank and I should've waited longer for corals. This frogspawn went in last month. Currently, lots of algae is growing (98% diatoms) which I blow off every so often with a pipette.

Additional notes:
- my zoas are growing but the heads are also mostly closed. This is my second tank and my first tank (fluval 13.5) has insane zoa growth in it. So something is up like I said. Could it be low nutrients? I over feed the heck out of my fluval. My 3 fish there are plump AF!

- I've been reefing for over a year and a half. Still have lots to learn! This forum has been so helpful for my reefing journey. Thank you guys <3

 

[Retro Reefer]

Do you know your Phosphate levels? Are you using 0 tds RO/DI water? What kind of lighting are you using?

 

[Gatling]

Do you know your Phosphate levels? Are you using 0 tds RO/DI water? What kind of lighting are you using?

I don't know what phosphates are at, I have RODI system that produces 0tds water. I have 1 AI Prime (nuvo 20 gallon)

 

[steallife904]

Anytime I have had problems like this in the past it was phosphate. im betting your phosphate are to high. In a 20 gallon im thinking monthly water changes are not enough. Probably need weekly at least. Do you have a skimmer? And yes you are kinda early to the coral game but it ok. I would say check phosphates asap and maybe a big waterchange.

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

Anytime I have had problems like this in the past it was phosphate. im betting your phosphate are to high. In a 20 gallon im thinking monthly water changes are not enough. Probably need weekly at least. Do you have a skimmer? And yes you are kinda early to the coral game but it ok. I would say check phosphates asap and maybe a big waterchange.

I've actually had problems in the past when nitrates and phosphates were too low!

 

[Gatling]

I just came home and the polyp is still looking healthy but it popped out of the rock.

It's folded over. What am I even supposed to do if it won't secure it's self? I don't want to handle it too much.

Anytime I have had problems like this in the past it was phosphate. im betting your phosphate are to high. In a 20 gallon im thinking monthly water changes are not enough. Probably need weekly at least. Do you have a skimmer? And yes you are kinda early to the coral game but it ok. I would say check phosphates asap and maybe a big waterchange.

Oh they might be too high you think? I don't have a skimmer, I was also told it may make the water too clean! I'm gonna get a phosphate reading kit asap!!

 

[Gatling]

It's crazy how quickly these corals adapt to new environments. I placed it back in the hole and it's doing fairly well for bailing.

I'm not sure what more to do except watch and wait. I'm going to place a GFO baggy in and then test my phosphates when I get the kit.

Has anyone had positive experience with polyp bailout? Was it mistake to place it in a crevice (as it will want to grow and I'm not sure if it's going to have issues)?

 

[Retro Reefer]

It looks great in that last photo however chance of survival is slim but not unheard of.. The problem with starting GFO is you don’t know if you even have high phosphate so you could do even more damage by implementing it. Knowing your nitrate And phosphate levels can be critical in situations like this, I would see if your LFS can test these for you or better yet invest in test kits so you can do it yourself.

 

[Mikedawg]

Might find this interesting:

 

[Gatling]

It looks great in that last photo however chance of survival is slim but not unheard of.. The problem with starting GFO is you don’t know if you even have high phosphate so you could do even more damage by implementing it. Knowing your nitrate And phosphate levels can be critical in situations like this, I would see if your LFS can test these for you or better yet invest in test kits so you can do it yourself.

Absolutely, I know lowering it fast can be bad or having 0 phosphates are bad too. I'm picking up a test kit on my way back home and I'll update the status.

I was doing research on this topic and I think a reason for the polyp to bail is a change in temperature. I did a water change last week and I take my aquarium heater out of the tank and place it in my mixed water. I think the tank temp drops 2°f which I have been doing for a year with my other tanks but temperature swings can cause polyp bailout. Not a definitive answer but I thought it was potentially a cause.

 

[steallife904]

I am by know means 100% correct or positive but I would say 2 degrees would be ok, I don't think that would have been enough to do it. I have had swings bigger and no issue. I still think phosphate if I had to pick. Hope you can test today, I would agree with above that throwing the GFO in there before you tested it doesn't really tell you what it was. Since it was already done though once you test you will either see its still to high and you need to keep running GFO or its low and you either remove or continue to run it. It will be trial and error, if its low pull the GFO and see if phosphates come back up. I would recommend a skimmer but you can do more water changes to replace it on a small tank. With no skimmer and a small tank you will need to watch nutrients.

 

[Gatling]

It looks great in that last photo however chance of survival is slim but not unheard of.. The problem with starting GFO is you don’t know if you even have high phosphate so you could do even more damage by implementing it. Knowing your nitrate And phosphate levels can be critical in situations like this, I would see if your LFS can test these for you or better yet invest in test kits so you can do it yourself.

I was delayed with my testing but it turns out I have 0ppm of phosphates (as assumed) so I took my GFO baggy out.

What's the best way to raise the phosphates?

 

[W1ngz]

Feed heavily to raise phosphates, but test regularly as well. You don't want to go too far and end up with even more problems. 0ppm phosphates are not good, but 0ppm is a typical result in a healthy tank using liquid test kits. Most people target 0.05-0.1 ppm which is too low for most tests other than a low range hanna checker.

A 2°f temp change wouldn't do this.

 

[Gatling]

Hi all, just a quick update.

Here's a pic of the frogspawn. It can never settle down on a spot in my tank! Every morning, it's somewhere new. It's quite dense so I'm not worried about it floating up to my power head.

This isn't the best photo as it's looked better when I place it up right. I think it's sideways so it's not quite happy.


My hammer is still looking not the best but hasn't bailed. It's been in my tank for almost 4 months now. I'm going to feed heavy and watch my alk for the next while. I want to do frequent water changes yet that will be too big of a nutrient export.

I picked up two frostbite clowns and I'm going to get a few more fish soon so that'll help with the nutrients of the tank.

Thanks for all the support guys!

 

[Matt1997]

Bump. Anything new?